United Nations top human rights official Navi Pillay's remarks about Israel committing war crimes have upset the country's government.

Defending their actions, Yigal Palmor, Israel's Foreign Ministry spokesman said: "Navi Pillay demonstrates once again her unfortunate lack of discernment in grasping real situations in real life."

During  an emergency debate at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva Wednesday, Pillay, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said that Israel may have committed war crimes by killing civilians and shooting houses and hospitals in Gaza Strip as its offensive entered the third week.

"These are just a few examples where there seems to be a strong possibility that international humanitarian law has been violated, in a manner that could amount to war crimes. Every one of these incidents must be properly and independently investigated," Pillay said criticizing the attacks, reports Reuters.

Pillay's comments did not go down well with Israel and rather attracted criticism from the officials. "She (Pillay) would be better advised to seek credible first-hand information rather than making intolerably biased statements based on newspaper clippings. Her embarrassingly shallow and populist affirmations may pander to the more obscurantist members of the Human Rights Council but do a huge disservice to actual human rights," Palmor said, according to The Jerusalem Post.

Palestine, Egypt and Pakistan had requested the Geneva rights forum for the special one-day session.

Israel has been constantly blaming the Council of biasness and boycotted the Geneva forum for 20 months before restarting cooperation in October. Its main supporter the United States, a member state, said that Israel has been unjustly left out.

"Israel will destroy Hamas' military infrastructure," Israel's UNHCR ambassador Eviatar Manor said, referring to the Palestinian militant group controlling Gaza. "However, the Gaza residents are not our enemy. Israel is fully committed to international law," he added, reports Deutsche Welle.

Meanwhile, the US Secretary of State John Kerry is arriving in Tel Aviv Wednesday, said progress in stopping the bloodbath in Gaza and Israel has been made to an extent. "We have certainly made some steps forward," Kerry said, reports The Washington Post. "There is still work to be done."

The airstrikes by Israel has claimed more than 650 lives of Palestinians and left 4,000 wounded.